Years ago, when I was editor of a literary journal I wrote that all writing should have a "social purpose". It caused an uproar with debates breaking out between those who agreed and those who thought I was limiting their right to write for whatever reason they wanted. My intent was simpler. I wanted writers to think about why they were writing. What was their purpose? Recently, historian Rudy Acuna, wrote that [we] have to have a "reason for everything [we do]". I fully agree and believe that failure to have a reason for scholarship is why so many scholars do not write books.
When scholars don't have a purpose for their writing they find it difficult to motivate themselves to research, scrutinize documents and write and rewrite, edit and re-edit, all which are necessary for writng a book. For those who do a lot of writing, the lack of focus means they rarely write the longer works. Lacking a purpose also makes it difficult to continue to develop book topics because there is no logical trajectory.
Having a purpose also provides form and reason for our writing. It forces us to focus on what we feel needs to be said, where sources are available and where the work will fit within the broader literature. The purpose for my scholarship was to affirm that Mexicans Americans were a people, not a minority group, and we needed to show this in the scholarship. This led to a second more narrow focus which was to show this "peoplehood" by writing about their politics and activism. One will soon see that there are other layers of focus as one defines and refines the topic to a point where it is doable.
Each of my works built on the former but remained focused on showing that Mexican Americans had all the fundamentals of a people. This is why it was not a hard transition to go from writing about politics and civil rights to high school basketball championships in my upcoming book. I was still writing about Mexican Americans as a people but doing it through another part of their experience.
I would add that passion has much to do with our relationship to the people we write about, even those who have long gone. They give us a reason to write. I grew up in a vibrant community despite its problems and when I got to school and college I realized that they were invisible in the scholarship. And that invisibility impacted how those in the community saw themselves, and even how their children saw them, so I decided to do something about it.
For this reason, I believe that scholarship has a purpose and scholars should have the feel of a "call" about their scholarship. Think of any good scholar and you will find that there is a purpose to her/his writing. It does not have to be crystal clear but it does have an implicit aspect to it. Not all the reasons are the same, but reasons are necessary to develop passion.
Passion doesn't have to be political or ideological but it must reflect a genuine concern for the topic even when we write about people we don't like. One last point about passion and that is that it is not an excuse for one-sided polemical works. The passion is about telling a story that provides a true picture about how things really are. I understand the postmodernist argument and there is much to be said for it, but I do believe in truth and facts even if we do have to continue to filter them so as to write something that is truly meaningful.
I should say that whether anyone responds or not I'm sure that this post will create a lot of mental debates, and a lot of rolling of the eyes, particularly by those who have struggled with writing the book. It is not meant to cause discomfort but simply to help those who want to write. And admittedly, I have to continually reaffirm my passion and find reasons for writing scholarly books because no matter how many times you write them they are still hard to do. I go into months of depression when I finish one and when I am in the process of beginning another. Sometimes the two connect and its a very long blue season. But eventually, I remember why I write and then I get back into it.
Next post: Part 3: Scholarly Writing as a Craft.
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